No. 57.—Ashypelt
Once there was an old man and an old ’ooman livin’ in the Forest o’ Dean. They ’ad twelve sons, and there was one son called Ashypelt. He was the youngest son, and they didn’t never think but very little o’ Ashypelt, as ’ee was allus used to be i’ the esshole under the fire, an’ the brothers used to spit on ’im and laugh at ’im an’ make fun of ’im an’ that. He never spoke, didn’t Ashypelt, nor hear nuthin’. These eleven brothers—they was nearly allus felling timber and that—used to go, they used to go off tel Saturdays for a week. They used to do that very reglar, and were bringing a lot of money in for the old man and the old ’ooman.
So the old ’ooman sez one day, ‘Well, John, I sez, I think you an’ me ’as got enough money now to live on which will keep we all the days of our life. An’ we’ll tell ’em to-night’—it was on a Saturday, an’ they was comin’ home again, they was comin’ home with all the week’s wages—‘we’ll say to ’em as the pressgang ’as been after ’em, as they’ve got to ’ear as we’ve got eleven very fine sons, and they wants to make soldiers of ’em. So I’ll begin a-cryin’ when they comes ’ere to-night, and I’ll say to ’em, “O my very dear sons, the pressgang’s been after yous ’ere to-day. They want yous to go for soldiers, an’ the best you can do, my dear children”—the old ’ooman was cryin’ very much, makin’ herself so—“is to go to sleep in the barn.” An’ we’ll put ’em to sleep in the barn, an’ give ’em their week’s victuals with ’em’ (what they used to take reglar), sez the old ’ooman to the old man. ‘We can soon put Ashypelt out o’ the road.’ (He was listenin’ all the time, the poor Ashypelt, listenin’ wot the old ’ooman was sayin’.) ‘Soon as we’ve put the eleven sons in the barn we’ll set fire to ’em about twelve o’clock and burn ’em: that’s the best way to take it out of ’em. We’ll burn ’em,’ she sez.
Poor Ashypelt gets up out o’ the esshole—this was about the hour of eleven: they was sittin’ up till twelve to set the barn afire. He goes up to the barn, an’ ’ee throws ’is brothers up one after another neck and crop—an’ they was goin’ to kill ’im—an’ their week’s victuals.
‘Oo are you?’ they sez. [[236]]
‘I am your brother Ashypelt,’ he sez, ‘I am your brother Ashypelt.’
So one looks at ’im, an’ another looks at ’im, to find a certain mark as they know to him. They went to kill poor Ashypelt for throwing them up.
He sez, ‘My father and mother is goin’ to set you afire, all the lot o’ you, that’s the reason they put you in the barn. An’ come with me up on that back edge, an’ you’ll see the barn goin’ afire directly,’ sez Ashypelt.
They sat on this high edge tel twelve o’clock come, an’ they was lookin’ out, an’ they seen the old ’ooman an’ the old man go with a lantern, an’ puttin’ a light to the barn an’ all the straw what was in it. So they thanked Ashypelt very much for savin’ their lives, but they didn’t injure their father or mother; but they all started to go on the road together. They comes to twelve cross-roads; an’ poor Ashypelt, never bein’ out o’ the esshole before, ’ee took very sleepy, through bein’ a very ’ot day.